Her Here

I

The View from Elsewhere

1

I HAVE BEEN UP ALL NIGHT and now the day is gray, the narrow streets slick and silvered outside the taxi window. Sleeplessness gives the city an unreal, varnished air—shops, shutters, pigeons, and trees all flickering and chromed, like movie stills cut together in the old way.

The driver stops alongside stone steps that lead uphill. He tells me again that the street I am looking for does not exist. On the ride from the airport, he spoke of his childhood in Montmartre, of parties in squares strung with lights, where children were allowed to stay up dancing. As he spoke, he looked into the rearview mirror, his gaze warm, soliciting. Sometimes I give the impression of not paying attention, but I’m gleaning all I can from the present, encoding it carefully. It is unlikely that this man, who has lived here all his life, does not know my street. Perhaps he is right. None of it is real: Siobhán, the flat, the missing girl.

I find the place Marcel-Aymé on my GPS and show the driver. His bright laugh fills the car. He swivels into reverse. Maybe I was mispronouncing the name.

On the square, which exists, my eyes travel up the building façade, balcony after balcony, to a dome with a topmost window, which will be mine. Through sheets of cloud, sun strikes the wet brick and stone. Looking up like that gives me vertigo. By the door, which faces the square, a tree sways under its burden of pink, excessive blooms.

At the square’s far end, people are gathered. They are looking at something hidden from my view by their windbreakers and backpacks. When the group drifts away, I approach, leaving my suitcase by the door.

The statue is of a man stuck in the wall—or emerging. I can’t tell. His face of dark bronze is resigned. His fingers, long and expressive, reach toward me out of the stones, rubbed gold by many eager, living hands. As I move to touch the fingers, a high, shrill voice stops me.

—Isa!

A woman from the tourist group is gazing at me from the street.

—Isa! she says again, and runs down the slope that joins the street to the square.

Embarrassed, I stand still, my legs taking root among the stones. My face is one people think they know, and strangers will often tell me I remind them of someone. When she sees me up close, this woman, too, will find some detail in my face to set her right. She’ll apologize, ashamed of her error, but aglow with the memory of whomever she took me for.

Now she runs across the square, her black hair loose behind her, her low heels unsteady on the cobblestones. She reaches me, breathless, and takes my hands, pressing them to her chest. Her forehead is broad, and her eyes are black and wet with tears.

—Isabelle, she says.

Her smile makes me want to smile, too.

—No, I say.

She steps back and studies me, probing my gaze for recognition.

—But Isabelle, it’s you. Of course it’s you.

She laughs again, but more sadly this time, performing a calculation.

—If it was you, you wouldn’t tell me, she says, squeezing my hands.

Her touch is warm, her skin a little dry.

—No, I’m not her. I’m not Isa. My name is Elena. I’m sorry.

I am sorry. I’ve hurt her without meaning to. To appease her, I ask:

—When did you know Isa? Isabelle?

The ground of stones swells up like the sea, and the woman looks at me with such confusion that I turn away, embarrassed, and move quickly with my suitcase into the building.

Leaning against a wall of mirror in the foyer, I watch her retreat across the square. A scene like this shouldn’t bother me so much, but the world is strange today. I’ve been awake all night, crossing the ocean, and now I can’t shake her look of need. I’m not Isa, but the time I’ve lived and don’t remember deprives me of certainties. I’m sick of grasping, still, for the strong, solid shore where life can begin.

I imagine myself arriving at Ella’s door—or finding her on a beach or in a square—and saying, Ella, Ella! Do you know how long your mother—your real mother—has been looking for you? I’ll bring them together, mother and daughter. I can do nothing for the woman outside, but I can help Siobhán. I believe that Ella is alive and can be found.

I carry my suitcase up seven flights to the flat that is to be mine. My mother was British, and, though my accent is American, she has left me with certain words, ways of saying. Taking the key from under the carpet, I twist it in the lock until the door opens onto a studio with high ceilings and parquet floors, dormer windows and false balconies, balustrades beyond which the city flickers under exchanges of sun and cloud. I find Ella’s journals immediately, on a table by the entrance, stacked under a Post-it with my name on it. Six books, all with hard canvas backings and each a different color. They seem both childish and prematurely ancient. I open one. Beige cover. Sharp scent of its paper is full of elsewhere. The handwriting is neat, round letters anchored to the lines of every page. Some entries are a paragraph, others much longer. I turn to a page at random and begin to read:

A Lanna house has no borders. Walls are doors, open to breezes blown across rice fields, orange orchards, and tea plantations. Jasmine is everywhere, on the highway with its trucks and motorcycles and at the roadside pineapple stands and noodle shops. I first noticed it on the tarmac of the tiny airport—its sweet, heavy scent.

It’s ridiculous to feel this frisson and hint of smell from words alone. A thought flies up, made of sounds: I’d rather be her than here. It doesn’t make sense. Ella could be dead. Maybe Siobhán is deluded to think she can be found. No. Siobhán is strange—secretive and intense—but not deluded. And she has lost a daughter—twice. Once given up, once taken away by the world.

Flipping through the pages, I feel embarrassed, catching phrases not meant for my eyes.

Her is Ella. She is so alive in her journals, the way I want to be. Looking for her feels urgent, a task with clear edges, purpose. She is someone I might love.

Here is a room with wide windows, a metallic sky rising like a dome over rooftops and monuments. Far below, in a park, branches are bone white under veils of leaves. Nothing moves, and it is cold for early summer. The clean white emptiness of the studio flat makes me think of Irigaray, that feminist philosopher of watery things, who thought women use pronouns differently than men, who cast herself as the marine lover of Nietzsche, and who—a professor once told me this—lived in a white apartment, wore only white, and would not let others touch her. This is what I see. Others might say what a nice flat this is.

Here is also the city I left a month ago. Returning to it now—audaciously, as if the place were a sort of home—I feel its foreignness more acutely. The language still trips my tongue, and I don’t know this part of town. I was probably wrong to return.

Today is the sixteenth of June. The date is significant because Ella began the journals on the same day eight years ago. Siobhán must know this, working carefully as she does.

When Ella disappeared more than six years ago, her adoptive parents conducted a search in Thailand. The detective failed to turn up anything—only a few interviews (inconclusive) in the village where she lived. Even so, I’d rather be him, too, tracking Ella through jungles. All I have are her words, their rhythms—bodiless and abandoned.

Closing the beige book, I slip out the journal at the bottom of the stack. Green cover. The pages are stiffer, marked by rings of salt and warped by sea air. Her handwriting has changed, black threads of sentences unfurling over ruled paper.

I have glimpses into what is real. Can’t sustain them. Thresholds vanish as I try to enter. The world I’m writing is already gone.

I flip back, looking for context. A guesthouse in the hills near Chiang Rai. Teakwood gives the room its odor, rich and sharp. A breeze touches my face and arms—her face and arms, which, as I read, are mine. Someone is packing, suitcase on the bed. His back is turned, and his white shirt stands out against polished wood walls. Behind him, through wall-size doors, hills stretch into Myanmar.

Reading on, I see the brown track of the river, layered green hills going forever. Then a sun flash through the window returns me to myself and to here, to this white room in Paris.

2

I FIRST MET SIOBHÁN TWO MONTHS AGO, over coffee in the gardens of the Palais-Royal. It was April, and the long rows of trees were blooming. Raw warmth dug up smells of turned earth and flowers, a too-sweetness that made me think of decomposition.

Siobhán was seated when I arrived, reading a glossy arts magazine. I knew it was her because she stiffened in recognition as I approached, though she’d never seen me before. Her sunglasses showed me a distorted version of myself before she raised them, extending her hand.

—Your mother was a close friend of mine a long time ago. It’s a pleasure to meet you.

Siobhán spoke with calibrated calm, with a poise I found contagious.

I don’t remember my mother ever mentioning Siobhán. She never liked to speak of the past, of remote people or things. She loved what was immediate, present to the senses. It was my father who had put me in touch with Siobhán. We know someone in Paris, he’d said over the phone. She and your mother were very close. I might have asked how they’d known each other or why I’d never heard of Siobhán, but all I could think of at the time was his way of saying your mother, as if she were more my relation than his.

Espressos arrived at our table without our having ordered them. Unless Siobhán had ordered them before I arrived. Or they reached us by mistake. We sat for a moment, immune to the shouts of children, to the absurdly flowering trees.

Siobhán looked at me evenly, her eyes very blue and calm. Her hair, light gray, was pulled together at the base of her neck. Her skin was smooth. She slipped her magazine into an outer pocket of her briefcase and reached for an espresso.

I was afraid she would tell me I reminded her of my mother, but she said nothing more about it, and we spoke of other things: my doctoral research on the French filmmaker Chris Marker, my reason for being in Paris (a monthlong trip was all I could afford), architecture, which had been Siobhán’s profession, and the gallery she’d designed after retiring. I asked to see it, and Siobhán offered to give me a tour.

Siobhán had grown up in Montreal and had an Irish mother, which explained her name and her accent (not quite North American). When she learned that my research trip was nearing its end, she asked if I’d found what I was looking for. I laughed and told her about my plan to teach in the summer and fall to save enough for a longer trip next year. A month was too short. Besides, I’d misspent it, writing a poetic essay about being able to see a vibrant world, precisely and with clarity, but not touch it, not feel it living as part of me and me of it. My essay was inspired by the film Sans Soleil, but it was too formless and full of feeling for any academic film journal to take seriously. I felt silly after telling her this—it wasn’t something I ever talked about.

—You’re a writer, Siobhán said.

Her calm, which I had admired earlier, was on full display.

—No, I said, pleased.

There was a long, uncomfortable pause.

—Did my mother exhibit here—with you? I asked.

—No, Siobhán said, looking up, surprised.

She tapped the spoon from her espresso on her cup. It made a small bell-like sound.

—I’m sorry, Elena, she said finally, in a tone that made it clear what she was talking about. Your father was in touch. I wish I could have been there.

—It was a long time ago, I said, meaning she shouldn’t worry.

It occurred to me only in retrospect that Siobhán and I might have met already, at the funeral. I was relieved we hadn’t.

Siobhán shifted, recrossing her legs.

—I wanted to be there, but I couldn’t.

Her gaze drifted above the building tops to a raw patch of sky. Her face was youthful—fine lines, yes, but a fullness of flesh that made her expression innocent, unmarked by life. She wasn’t indifferent, just intensely private, and mercurial.

—Ella would be your age now, she said. You’re twenty-nine?

I nodded. I didn’t want to ask who Ella was. Our intimacy felt strong and comfortable in that moment, because of my mother.

—I don’t know why I’m telling you so much, Siobhán said, although she hadn’t told me anything. Your mother was there when Ella was born. That must be why.

She looked at her shoes, black heels whitened by the gravel of the gardens. With the napkin from her espresso, she bent down and began to wipe the leather.

—Is Ella your daughter? I asked.

Siobhán sat up and was quiet. When she finally answered, her speech was stilted.

—I gave birth to her. I haven’t seen her since she was three months old. She was raised by friends I trusted, in America.

Siobhán looked again at the sky and went on.

—She grew up not knowing. They wanted her, as they put it, to grow up whole. They waited until she finished university to tell her.

I took a sugar cube and rolled it between my fingers until it was dust.

—Her response was to go live in Asia. If she saw how big the world was, maybe her own crisis would matter less. Or it’s just what people will do at that age if they have the means—go live somewhere they can’t fathom. London was that for me—it’s where I met Ida, as you know.

My mother’s name sent a tremor through me. So she and Siobhán had known each other in London, where she’d studied sculpture at the Slade before following my father to the United States. I felt ashamed. It was clear from Siobhán’s face that something terrible had happened, and I could think only of myself, of my mother and how much I still needed to learn about her.

It occurred to me to ask why Siobhán had given up her daughter in the first place, but I refrained out of politeness.

Siobhán swallowed hard, then smiled—it was an expression I knew better than my own, tying up pain with terrible lightness. It sucked out my breath, ran gravity through my limbs. Siobhán’s own expression returned, but I still wanted to fling my arms around her, a stranger. In the coldness of her face, I wanted to find that smile again. It was my mother’s.

—I wish I could help, I said.

My reply was genuine, though I meant it abstractly, the way most people mean I’m sorry, which is what I should have said. But Siobhán stared at me strangely, narrowing her eyes as if to take in my whole body.

A WEEK LATER, I STOOD ON THE SIDEWALK in front of the Ormeau Gallery. Having arrived a little early, I peered through the glass front into the space. Siobhán was inside, with her back to me, her phone pressed to her ear. Her movements were bird-like, polished and abrupt. Not at all like my mother. Seeing her end the call, I tried the door. Locked. She turned and crossed the space to let me in.

Inside, daylight intensified. City noise faded.

The gallery was empty except for a few covered sculptures and a spiral staircase, its iron railing too intricate in the bare space.

—We’re between shows, Siobhán said. New work goes up the day after tomorrow. But you have a sense of the place. There are two levels.

She gestured to a loft at the top of the spiral stairs, which extended halfway across the gallery, leaving a cathedral ceiling over the rest of the space. That was the tour. Then she invited me to lunch at a nearby café. We had omelettes.

—What interests you about Marker? she asked, after telling me she didn’t like to mix egg with cheese, preferring plain omelettes to the version I had ordered.

—He makes what’s ordinary mean something.

I was thinking of the fictional cameraman in Sans Soleil, tracking banality with the restlessness of a bounty hunter. Instead, I said:

—He takes his cue from Sei Shōnagon’s list of things that quicken the heart. He said it wasn’t a bad criterion for making films.

—Filming things that quicken the heart?

—He isn’t afraid of emotion.

Siobhán nodded, cutting a neat wedge from her omelette. If I was her daughter’s age, she was also about the age my mother would have been, and something about her bodily presence threatened to fill a need I’d thought permanent. The intensity of my reaction embarrassed me, so I hid it behind a mask of competence, describing Marker’s idea that memory travels from person to person, his theory that montage produces meaning, and his debt to the Soviet montage theorists: Kuleshov, Vertov, and Eisenstein, who said that narrative always proceeds with an eye toward rhythm.

Siobhán looked intrigued. Perhaps it was this brief show of passionate professionalism that decided for her. I can’t imagine why else she’d think me competent for such a task. I’m told I speak well, that I’m articulate. It leads people to believe I’m cleverer than I am.

I returned to the gallery the following day at Siobhán’s request and was shown the journals.

Heels clicking over the hardwood floor, she led me through to the gallery’s narrow back room. Walls extended to a skylight, which revealed clouds and the edges of buildings. She knelt beside a low bookshelf and gestured to a set of notebooks, ragged and multicolored, their broken spines pressed between elegant art books.

She picked one out—blue cover—and turned it over in her hands.

—It was too much to go into the other day, she said. Ella is missing. It has been six years. She was twenty-three when she disappeared.

My breath caught. My imagination ran wild: cults, sex trafficking, drugs.

—I was the first to know, Siobhán said. A package arrived for me from the south of Thailand a month after its postmark. There was a letter and Ella’s green journal, her most recent. She must have hated me, or the idea of me, to send that. Monstrous.

Siobhán laughed bitterly, then composed herself.

—It worried me. I called her adoptive parents. We hadn’t spoken in twenty years. Ella had asked them for space, and they were trying to respect this, but they’d had no news and were frantic. We flew to Thailand. Police. Detectives. We went first to the south, then to the north—she was teaching English near Chiang Rai. The university where she worked told us nothing. Only that she’d gone to the south because she needed rest.

Siobhán stood and began pacing the narrow space.

—In Chiang Rai, we found her things. Ella’s adoptive mother kept her clothes, in case she returns. After reading the first pages, she wanted nothing to do with the journals. The detective dismissed them. Girlish and irrelevant, he said. So they’re here, all six books. When a year went by and we hadn’t found her, I sold my firm. I built this, Siobhán said, indicating the gallery.

I stared at the blue book in Siobhán’s hands. Its physicality made Ella more real.

—You’ve read them? I asked, turning my gaze to the others, in a row on the shelf.

—It doesn’t help. I don’t understand them the way I would like to.

Siobhán opened the blue journal and handed it to me.

I made a show of turning pages, squinting at lines of script: jasmine, gray eyes, lights in the river. I couldn’t focus on sentences. But the language was clear, logical.

—Once, Siobhán said, I hired someone to translate them into French. I thought—I still think—there must be something in them, a clue. I thought I might access them better in another voice.

I felt my muscles stiffen.

—And did you?

—It was too much the same, just in French, Siobhán said, shaking her head. It was clear from the sample. I canceled the contract.

Siobhán was looking at me expectantly. She wanted me to offer—she wanted something. Wary of her intensity, I said that my flight back to the States was in three days. It was true.

Siobhán took a slip of paper from the top of a filing cabinet and handed it to me. It was more like a poem than a contract, words islanded by white space, winnowed to essentials.

Accommodation: private studio flat, eighteenth arrondissement.

Airfare: paid by reimbursement

Living Expenses: paid by stipend, six hundred euros/month

Project: length negotiable, unified story

Duration: one year

I looked up, unable to hide my shock. Siobhán gazed back at me, composed.

—I have a studio I’m not renting. Seventh floor, no elevator. The stipend is not a lot, but it would enable you to begin your dissertation research right away. You wouldn’t have to teach and save. In exchange, you would work on the journals.

I pointed to the line that said project.

Siobhán nodded, as if expecting this.

—You would rewrite the journals as an account of what happened.

—A report? I asked.

—A narrative. A story.

Siobhán’s face was impassive. I asked myself why she would want this. I could understand her asking me to analyze the journals; I was good at analysis. But a story? And why me, whom Siobhán hardly knew? Emotionally, something clicked into place. I felt satisfied.

—Is Ella alive? I asked.

Siobhán’s gaze settled on me. Fine lines seemed to deepen and extend around her eyes.

—Ella is an American citizen, she said. According to American law, a missing person is declared dead after seven years. By law, she’s alive until January.

Siobhán sat down at the table, her forearms resting on the contract.

I could feel the breath in my lungs. From their shelves, the journals seemed to peer out, as if to impress upon me how long they’d waited, asking patiently, urgently, for something Siobhán could neither ignore nor understand.

—I’ve never been to Thailand, I said. I know nothing—

—We won’t find her by going to Thailand, Siobhán said wearily. We tried that.

She put her fingers to her lips, as if deciding whether to go on.

—You know, she said finally, I used to think one day you and Ella would meet. You were born only months apart. You might have been great friends, like your mothers. When I saw you yesterday, I thought you were a ghost. You look just like Ida.

—People say that.

She rose from the table, composed and certain. Watching her move was like watching an infinitely protean form, her scarf, her belt, her jewelry keeping her in flux.

—Don’t answer now, she said. Take some time. Think about it while you’re in the States.

PHILADELPHIA WAS A RELIEF. There was the familiarity of my apartment with all my things, closer contact with Z by phone, beers with friends from graduate school, and the light humidity of early summer on the East Coast. No more sullen sky and heaviness of gray buildings, just cheery bright brick and right-size coffees. I could imagine I’d never met Siobhán, never seen the gallery, knew nothing about Ella or her journals. And Siobhán’s proposal had exposed Paris as an ideal. Now that living there was possible, it became less desirable, less necessary. At this early stage, much of what I needed could be found through the university library. What would I do now with rare footage, letters, notebooks, and typescripts?

I even thought of other places I might go. In Berlin, for instance, I could research Weimar cinema or UFA in the era of silent film. But it wasn’t the origins of cinema that interested me; in Paris, I cared little for the Lumière brothers. We never fully know the reasons for our obsessions; such knowledge would cure or quell them. I worked in a fever dream the months after my field exams, rewatching films, teaching myself the language and political history of France, Cuba, and Vietnam, sifting through Marker’s many pseudonyms, until